Delivery

This is the one place I feel powerful,
this selfish sharing. It's my choice.
Here, please
look here. It's me as a kid,
smiling, denim-jacketed and rolling in leaves,
blonde hair that will turn brown and the man
taking the picture, let me tell you,
he's a giant, a hero—he once lifted
the sailboat trailer off my brother after it had fallen
and pinned him, screaming for help and here he comes
so strong and calm he could've lifted five trailers, I swear,
anything for his grandson.

Yes, take it, please. Keep it.
My words to you, I want them
to keep you warm and safe
and reminded of the beauty.
There's so much beauty that I need
to share, to employ this power
to direct your eyes or cover them
because I can choose, this time, I can choose
and I have the power to change it for you
and still choose to give it all
away so freely,

as freely as the words
sometimes arrive, unwelcome,
handed down by friends
of an expecting mother
that lost the second heartbeat
and still has to deliver.
The cord, wrapped around twice.
No no no crying.

Circulatory

Her two fingers trace
a floating heart: together,
apart, together.

Doppler shift

The two of us on the couch in silence
before our words lined up in sentences, waves
pushed out by bats, approximate distances
as the consummate meteorologist over her radar
sketches the trace of trouble, the face
of an ex-convict run away from his sentence,
a storm witnessed by survivors with tears
streaming, torrents of rain reported
on the screen she's watching as the red
line, a clock's hand, colors the prediction,
the button pushed to sound the sirens
to say the storm is coming and like madmen
they'll run to get away from the sentence
on the screen with the meteorologist moving
her hands in a circle, the circling
of blind animals feeding, the swirl of clouds and
shiftlessly I reach out to you and place my hand on yours.